Acheulian
Culture in Peninsular India: An Ecological Perspective by R.S.Pappu
with a Foreword by V.N.Misra.
D.K.Printworld (P) Ltd., New Delhi; 2001;
170 pages; 46 figures. Hardback. ISBN 81-246-0168-2.
The Acheulian seems to be rather in fashion at the moment - a thought
that I suppose might have occurred, at a rather earlier date and with
less pleasure, to the makers of the later Oldowan industries. This latest
addition to the recent literature of the Acheulian relates to an area
that is of great geographical interest to students of the Lower Palaeolithic:
the Indian Sub-Continent. India lies at very much the eastern margin
of Acheulian distribution: opinions are still divided as to whether
or not there is any 'real' Acheulian in China or Far Eastern Asia more
generally, or whether the old 'Movius Line,' originally conceived as
the boundary between the territory of the handaxe-makers and that of
the 'chopper/chopping-tool' users, still essentially holds good so far
as the eastern limit of the Acheulian is concerned. Certainly we can
now point to a few Far Eastern lithic assemblages with substantial numbers
of large bifacial tools: for example, Dingcun and the Nihewan Valley
sites in China, and Chongokni in South Korea, though not all are well
dated. But what are missing, in all that vast area, are massive, classical
Acheulian occurrences, with handaxes and cleavers in hundreds or indeed
thousands, such as can be found in so many parts of Africa, in the Near
East and even in Europe. With India, there is no such problem. R.S.Pappu
says several times in his book that Peninsular India is one of the richest
areas in the whole of the Old World for Acheulian finds. So, this seems
to be the eastern outpost proper of the Acheulian, only occasionally
and briefly passed, if at all, just as southern Britain represents the
northwestern margin of the same huge distribution. Marginal areas always
have their own special interest, one aspect of which is to establish
just when and for how long they were reached.
Pappu's book is the outcome of a two-year period he spent in 1995-7
as a Senior Research Fellow of the Indian Council of Historical Research,
working mainly at the Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute
at Pune. He himself had previously been deeply involved in fieldwork
at various Indian Lower Palaeolithic sites, while the Deccan College
has long been a base for some of the most productive researchers studying
the same period. He begins by briefly and usefully recalling the history
of Lower Palaeolithic research in India, which actually began in the
third quarter of the 19th Century, and by outlining his project, which
involved much library work, the examination and classification of prolific
collections of artefacts, and a programme of geological and geoarchaeological
field study at some of the key sites in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and
Karnataka.
The book proceeds with summary descriptions of some 22 Indian sites
or site complexes in 'primary or semi-primary contexts,' where excavations
have actually been carried out, plus a few others of importance. Listing
these in alphabetical order rather than region by region is not perhaps
the most useful device, but the geographical aspects of the distribution
are fully addressed later, and Appendix I is a regionally organised
longer list of site names, with references. Some of the 22 primary or
near-primary context sites are well known - Attirampakkam, Bhimbetka,
Chirki-Nevasa (Chirki-on-Pravara), Hunsgi, Isampur, for example - but
I wonder how many names, out of the whole list, scholars of the Lower
Palaeolithic who have not visited India would instantly recognise? Some,
like Paisra and the prolific Raisen complex, certainly deserve to be
better known. This chapter provides only basic descriptions of the various
occurrences, and does not attempt to set out full site-by-site totals
of the artefact types that are frequently mentioned, or to document
in any detail the comparative statements that are made, but it offers
some good and useful factual information, and lists the basic references,
also providing a scatter of maps, section drawings and plans, and photographs.
The remaining two chapters are entitled 'Salient Features' (50 pages)
and 'Acheulian Cultural System' (8 pages). In both, the author wrestles
valiantly with the basic problem (which he does not conceal) of a general
lack of surviving evidence, other than stone artefacts, in the Indian
Lower Palaeolithic, even at the primary context sites: he tells us that
no excavated site in India has yielded faunal, hominid or pollen material
associated with Acheulian lithic artefacts (p.125). For the whole sub-Continent,
only one hominid fossil of Middle Pleistocene age (from Hathnora, in
the Narmada Valley) is so far known. Finite dates of direct relevance
to the archaeological levels are also still in short supply, though
recent years have produced quite a number of chronometric readings,
obtained by various methods, and these are usefully listed in Appendix
II. It is clear that the Indian Acheulian people were capable of operating
successful settlement and subsistence strategies in many different ecological
settings, but the precise details of how they did it remain elusive.
Pappu tries everything and asks all the right questions, because these
are the things that interested him most, in this project, but the answers
are just not to be had yet, except for a few tantalising details at
some sites: possible traces of artificial structures at Hunsgi, Chirki
and Paisra; the particular use that was made of the lithic raw material
at the Isampur factory site; the pattern of local nomadism which Paddayya
deduced in the Hunsgi-Baichbal valleys; the occasional use of rock-shelters,
and so forth.
As for the stone tool industries of the Indian Acheulian, Pappu, perhaps
hoping for a succession of developing stages through time, documented
by geological evidence, has in the end to settle for just an Early Acheulian
and a Later Acheulian stage. Handaxes and cleavers are the dominant
tool types, and it is interesting to note that there are several cases
of assemblages in which cleavers outnumber handaxes. Tool function is
discussed, although no direct evidence relating to it is mentioned:
'their probable functions can only be speculated by their shape and
form and also by making experiments with these tools' (p. 88). There
are clear general similarities between the Indian Acheulian and that
of East and southern Africa, and Pappu is happy to accept an African
genesis for the Acheulian of Peninsular India. He suggests a time-range
of c. 600-66 kyr for the latter, though in fact that view may change
because, even since his book appeared, a substantially older date (in
excess of 1.0 myr) has been suggested for Isampur (Blackwell et al 2001)
and the lowest levels at Attirampakkam also seem likely to prove much
earlier than expected (cf. S. Pappu. 2001a: 240-43; 2001b).
The role of the Indian Acheulian in relation to that of the Old World
generally is only a passing concern of this book, and not all of the
wider background information mentioned in passing seems to have been
fully explored, an example being the rather bland assertion on page
117 that 'around one million years ago Homo erectus moved out of Africa
first into the Asian tropics and then into temperate Europe'. This however
is essentially an internal picture of the Indian Acheulian, and the
author makes clear at the outset what it does and does not cover: we
should assess it accordingly. It is a very useful addition to the rather
sparse quantity of literature on the Indian Lower Palaeolithic that
is of general scope, as opposed to studies of single sites or regions:
not very detailed, but full of useful information, and aware of the
weaknesses as well as the strengths of the whole corpus of finds. It
cannot have been an easy book to write, and if the reader may occasionally
feel frustrated by lack of detail in the picture presented, that is
not really the author's fault. So many advances have been achieved in
the study of the earlier Palaeolithic in India over the past four or
five decades, and the research endeavour is still firmly on an upward
trend. We should wish our Indian colleagues every success in the future,
starting with the discovery of some really well-preserved and well dated
sites, with plenty of associated environmental evidence of every kind,
and some more hominid fossils.
Derek Roe
Review Submitted: October 2002
References
Blackwell, B.A.B., Fevrier, S., Blickstein,
J.I.B., Paddayya, K., Petraglia, M., Zhaldiyal, R. and A. R. Skinner.
2001. ESR dating of an Acheulean quarry site at Isampur, India. Abstracts
for the Paleoanthropology Society Meeting, Westin Crown Center Hotel,
Kansas City, Missouri, USA, 27-28 March, 2001. Available online at http://www.idealibrary.com.
Academic Press.
Pappu, S. 2001a. A Re-Examination of the Palaeolithic Archaeological
Record of Northern Tamil Nadu, South India, BAR International Series,
1003. Oxford.
Pappu, S. 2001b. In the footsteps of Foote: recent excavations in South
India. PAST, the Newsletter of the Prehistoric Society. 37 (April 2001):
1-3.
The views expressed
in this review are not necessarily those of the Society or the Reviews
Editor.
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